Other men will make history. ... All I can say is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims - and as far as possible one must refuse to be on the side of the pestilence.

Förordet avslutas med en anteckning:

You cannot write with a view to impact or response. That way you distort the latter and corrode the integrity of the writing itself. In that sense, it is like shooting at the moon - you have to allow that it won't be in the same place by the time the rocket gets there. Better to know why you are sending it up in the first place and worry less about its safe landing. ...

You cannot anticipate either the context or the motives of readers in unconstrained futures. So all you can do is write what you should, whatever that means. A very different sort of obligation.